Tasha Bergson-Michelson

Tasha Bergson-Michelson is a member of the Google Search Education team. She is a professional librarian and searcher with a passion for helping people find, assess, and use the information they need. Contact Tasha and check out the Search Education website at: http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searcheducation/.

Tasha Bergson-Michelson's Latest Posts

At a recent conference, professor Kristin Fontichiaro described watching a seven-year-old work his way through do-it-yourself resources online. Because he was comparing concrete items (e.g., his circuit versus that in the tutorial), and not abstract concepts, the student immediately understood what was a credible resource and what was not. Although the task was about building […]

Students rely heavily on ranking–or how search tools decide the order in which to display results–to help them select sources to read. Most of us do, but the data about students comes from researchers Andrew Asher of Bucknell University and Lynda Duke of Illinois Wesleyan University. The researchers presented the findings of their latest study […]

Wondering how to use Google’s new Knowledge Graph? The resulting panels to the right of the main results are meant to move research beyond simple data retrieval into deeper topics. At the same time, the new tool could serve as a better way to use key words. The new sidebar shows key facts that users […]

Can’t figure out the source of an image you found online? There’s an easy trick you might not know about — and it’s an essential tool for citing sources. Students who find images they want to use in projects need to follow the appropriate rules of citation: state the title and the original source. But […]

The wired world has made it possible for people from all across the globe to connect and learn from each other. In a few days, New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof will host a Hangout and interview United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice during school hours. In classes across the country, students are hearing about the […]

Just as having students predict answers to math problems is a way of creating more meaningful learning, prediction can be a useful strategy in successful searching too. Search results can be presented any number of ways: tables and charts, videos, infographs. We teach students how to develop an understanding of the kinds of information that’s […]

Getty The Internet has made researching subjects deceptively effortless for students — or so it may seem to them at first. Truth is, students who haven’t been taught the skills to conduct good research will invariably come up short. That’s part of the argument made by Wheaton College Professor Alan Jacobs in The Atlantic, who […]

Flickr: dstrelau Dear Savvy Searcher, “We have hit a stumper. A colleague is looking for confirmation that Maya Angelou said the following (along with where and when): ‘We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter […]

Diane T. Sands Dear Savvy Searcher, My students keep wanting to enter their entire research question into the search bar. I keep trying to tell them that’s a bad idea. How do you teach students to identify the right words to use in a search? Frustrated Educator Dear Frustrated, I had a […]

Summer break presents the perfect opportunity for students to dig into games and build skills that’ll reap huge rewards when they return in the fall. Game making can be one of the best ways to get students thinking creatively while cultivating useful technical literacies, and there’s a ton of absorbing tools that students won’t tire of over the long break. Here are three options to choose from depending on the type of technology students have at home.

For educators who are interested in using games for learning — specifically towards developing skills as they relate to the Common Core State Standards — here are five games students can enjoy and that we’ve found sync with standards.

The success and popularity of Minecraft in and out of classrooms is no surprise. It’s one of the best examples of the potential of learning with games because it embraces exploration, discovery, creation, collaboration, and problem-solving while allowing teachers to shepherd play toward any subject area. But Minecraft is not the only game of this kind. Take a look at some of these.